This Sega Genesis/Mega Drive TAS was started January 27, 2016 by Gronkling (aka lovelyanimal), with ccexplore completing many early levels and creating several useful Lua scripts, and paiy completing many late-game levels and giving further optimisations to already completed levels. The TAS was finished March 8, 2024 by paiy.
The aim of the TAS was to start the game at the first level, and end the game at the last level, without using any passcodes, leading to a 100% completion. We save the required number of lemmings in each level, but do not go out of the way to save any more, leading to lemmings dying to save time. We used the PAL version as this is the fastest version, as it has a physics update every 3 frames, rather than every 4 frames in the NTSC version.
We utilised many glitches and edge behaviours. Some of the most common are:
  • Creating staircases by stopping bashers and miners mid-stroke
  • Allowing lemmings to slide upwards through terrain by building as a group of lemmings attempts to fit into a small gap
  • Destroying steel through various means, often overwriting its trigger area with a blocker.
  • Pushing lemmings through terrain using a blocker
  • Building in mid-air on the last frames of a digger
  • Exploiting misshapen or missing trigger areas (we made these visible through a Lua script)
A downside to this game is that it has a large amount of lag whenever many lemmings are on screen. To reduce lag, we often have to scroll the screen away from lemmings and tool use, so key moments often happen just off screen.
This TAS was created in BizHawk, on various versions over many years. The final TAS file was compiled on version 2.9.1. Each level was TASed individually, before being compiled in a single file, so rerecord count will be inaccurate.

Other Points

  • SHA1: 0B00509E9857CB97243E9F2741E90DE1
  • Uses standard BizHawk Genesis core: Genplus-gx
To see the times of each level individually, we have a spreadsheet https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18wx1xLMC8Dag4j5knI2ZzT90CEtZmqiXT3wSMElFYNw/edit?usp=sharing

nymx: Claiming for judging. Looking forward to this, since this was a top game for me on the SNES.
nymx: Replacing with a trimmed movie file.
nymx: 8 years...Wow! The work shows and I am truly amazed at the results here. Even though I've played this game a lot, I've never seen it all the way through. It got so hard that I wasn't able to figure out some of the levels, mid-way. I did a search for some Genesis runs, but I wasn't successful at finding any. My guess is that you destroyed the best human effort by at least 1 hour 1/2. With all these crazy tricks, it was certainly holding my attention and making me wonder how you pulled it off. Congratulations! Great work to the 3 of you.
Accepting.

despoa: Processing...


TASVideoAgent
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GJTASer2018
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We save the required number of lemmings in each level, but do not go out of the way to save any more, leading to lemmings dying to save time.
Sorry, but I don't consider this a "100% run" if you're not saving every lemming every time. If anything, I would consider this "any%" or "minimum required lemmings" run instead. Barring any evidence of glitches or bad game design making it impossible to do without cheats or hacking, saving every lemming every time should be part of the criteria for a "100% run" on a game like this.
c-square wrote:
Yes, standard runs are needed and very appreciated here too
Dylon Stejakoski wrote:
Me and the boys starting over our games of choice for the infinityieth time in a row because of just-found optimizations
^ Why I don't have any submissions despite being on the forums for years now...
CoolHandMike
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Joined: 3/9/2019
Posts: 699
Liked the impressive speed going through these levels although it is difficult to really understand what is happening on some of the levels like Stray Sheep 2:43:23 where it looks like someone is digging into the ceiling then the round ends? Many levels have the camera away from the lemmings to improve speed so maybe a brief description of the less straightforward levels would help. As far as the 100% goal, the level "Out away from the tune" 2:43:23 detonates a lemming so not 100% is saved. Perhaps there is some way to get a lemmings to clip up through the ceiling and then dig down to save 100%? Two heads are better than... 2:46:43 seems like a level that requires detonation normally so 100% looks impossible.
discord: CoolHandMike#0352
Player (19)
Joined: 2/1/2016
Posts: 6
Location: UK
It is impossible to save every lemming on every level, and there is no indication on what the maximum lemmings able to be saved is, and its not an easy question to answer. This makes it unsuitable for a "speed" category, and is its own separate challenge (With a long history). For example, in Fun 6, there is no way to save every lemming as bombers are needed, and some levels only have bombers. The current Any% lemmings TAS (on SNES) has the player skip to the final rank and play through only that rank, rather than every level. I can change the category to "all levels" if people think that is more clear. The amount that is off screen is the main annoying feature of this run. It would be possible to make a alternate slower TAS, showing everything. I have done this in the past.
eien86
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Joined: 3/21/2021
Posts: 262
Location: Switzerland
Watching the movie and reading the posts above makes it clear to me that the '100%' does not apply, as least given the jurisprudence in the site. One might expect in such category that all (possible) lemmings are saved, which is clearly not this case. I believe that the category "all levels", or similarly "no skips" apply much better here, since it is clearly the goal stated and accomplished by the authors. Awesome movie, btw. I vote yes.
DrD2k9
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GJTASer2018 wrote:
We save the required number of lemmings in each level, but do not go out of the way to save any more, leading to lemmings dying to save time.
Sorry, but I don't consider this a "100% run" if you're not saving every lemming every time. If anything, I would consider this "any%" or "minimum required lemmings" run instead. Barring any evidence of glitches or bad game design making it impossible to do without cheats or hacking, saving every lemming every time should be part of the criteria for a "100% run" on a game like this.
To my knowledge it’s not possible to save 100% of the lemmings in any lemmings game. Because each of the different rank/difficulties are separate play throughs of the 30 stages with different tools/restrictions, the fastest single playthrough of any one rank/difficulty would be the any % run for this game. As this run competes play throughs on all 30 stages in all the difficulties, “all levels” would be a better branch name than 100%.
Player (19)
Joined: 2/1/2016
Posts: 6
Location: UK
I have changed the category It is actually possible (though not intended) to 100% every single level in one game: "lemmings 2 the tribes" which is an interesting run
DrD2k9
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FWIW, a “maximum score” category for this game is possible by saving the maximum possible number of lemmings. It could potentially be labeled “maximum saves,” but that may be confusing just due to the use of the word ‘save’ for save games in regards to gaming in general.
Player (19)
Joined: 2/1/2016
Posts: 6
Location: UK
"maximum saved" is the term used by the lemmings community which is a bit more clear. It stands as the "main" challenge for the community, and has been pretty thoroughly solved, so a TAS would mostly just be going through old threads and implementing these solutions. Some lemmings games (such as the SNES port) have a score feature which takes into account other aspects such as number of skills used (with minimum skills being another common challenge)
Post subject: Movie published
TASVideoAgent
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This movie has been published. The posts before this message apply to the submission, and posts after this message apply to the published movie. ---- [5884] Genesis Lemmings "all levels" by Gronkling, ccexplore & paiy in 2:51:19.86